China deletes over 60,000 Internet accounts

BEIJING — Over 60,000 Internet services account names have been rectified to conform to a regulation to be effective next month, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) said on Feb 26.

An unidentified CAC official said account names were rectified by Sina, Baidu, Tencent, Alibaba and others. The accounts were involved in all kinds of services such as microblogs, blogs, forums and instant messaging applications.

Deliberately misleading names, rumormongers, names linked to terrorism such as the East Turkistan Islamic Movement, and other accounts involving violence, pornography and other violations were banned.

The CAC issued a 10-clause regulation earlier this month ruling that avatars and account handles should not include information that violated the Constitution or the law; subverted state power or undermined national security and sovereignty; or were deemed rumormongering.

Malicious content includes the promotion of cults and the dissemination of pornography or extremism and insults or defamation among others. The regulation is to take effect on March 1.

The official appreciated enterprises’ sense of responsibility before the regulation takes effect.